Pizza and Pizza Face

2011-09-01, 5:04 p.m.

Hmm. Good and bad news on the continuing saga of ï¿½Stepfie has a bit of a problem with the Aging Processï¿½. Last night I looked in the mirror before going to bed and, for the first time EVER, didnï¿½t see the ï¿½young meï¿½ fading away before my very eyes, getting ever fatter and wrinklier and less desirable. I saw ï¿½old meï¿½, as I will look in a few more years time, and actually she looked pretty damn good!

In celebration, and because my lovely Avon lady had given me some free samples (more on that later!) I slathered my face in free face cream and went happily off to bed.

This morning, maybe not so good. Either God is punishing me for my vanity or Karma has remembered something shitty I did that Ive long-since forgotten about, or else Im just destined never to have anything nice happen to me, as my face is just a great seething mass of itchy red hives. Oh, how they prickle and burn, dear readers! Yup, looks like an allergy to the face cream. Either that or fateï¿½s ï¿½amusingï¿½ way of ensuring that I look perpetually young is to give me the lumpy red blotchy complexion of a 14 year old. Went to Boots and got some anti-histamine which ï¿½should work in a few daysï¿½ according to the nice lady behind the counter. In the meantime, my face feels so tight as to be ready to burst open like an over-ripe plum and a little like its been rubbed with a sea urchinï¿½which has first been dipped in chilli sauce.

As I was speaking of lovely Avon ladies, I suppose I should carry on with the sorry tale which is my Avon Habit. I shouldnï¿½t have an Avon lady. I cannot afford to buy cosmetics on that regular a basis but, Oh!, she comes to my house and leaves me shiny tomes of glittery fabulousness, with pages I can rub on my wrist. She slips little extras into my deliveries (some quite nice perfume ï¿½ I now apparently smell like the lady out of Black Eyed Peas, which should be good, I guess, except that L pronounced her to have ï¿½fucking vile footballerï¿½s legsï¿½ which kind of took the shine off a bit. Perhaps thatï¿½s why sheï¿½s always banging on about her Lovely Lady Lumps ï¿½ it detracts from her scabby looking knees and thick ankles.)

Anyway, I try to resist the call of Avon but I always end up getting somethingï¿½then I usually find that the product I thought I liked so much is so attracting my attention as its EXACTLY the product I already have two of in my bathroom cabinet. *sigh*

Last time it was a cut-price ring and necklace that called to me so I ordered it and then told L he could give it to me for my birthday. He agreed, not least because it was only ï¿½10. It arrived yesterday and its not nearly as nice as I thought it looked in the brochure. This means that I get to experience that same over-riding sense of disappointment when I open my birthday gift from L in a couple of weeks time, but also that I know FOR CERTAIN that he put no thought into it whatsoever and that he spent fuck-all. I donï¿½t even get to be ungrateful cos I CHOSE IT. Meh.

Continuing the catalogue of woe which seems to be the general thread running through this entry, do you remember when that pigeon shat right on the petrol cap of my car? It was HERE if youre interested. Well anyway, I think I mustve tempted fate the last time I said ï¿½oh yeh? Oh, and pigs might fucking well fly right over the house!ï¿½ to L, as one (or maybe two) appears to have done exactly that and, mid-flight, to have experienced the porcine equivalent of Delhi Belly. Look!

Really, thereï¿½s just NO need, is there?

So, what else have I been doing when I havenï¿½t been napalming my face and chiselling dried shit off my windscreen? Well, we had a bit of a Gathering of the Clan last weekend, with a vaguely American theme. I made a ï¿½properï¿½ corned beef and OMIGOSH it was delicious ï¿½ well worth the week and a half it takes to make (no really, It does) even though I deffo had my doubts when, about four days into the ï¿½soaking in salt, sugar and spice solutionï¿½ process my big expensive piece of brisket had started to take on the bloated greying sliminess of a long-since drowned corpse , and all sorts of other things too. Jooj was in charge of getting pictures but I donï¿½t like any of the ones she took, so you can only see this one of me cutting up some bread. And Im only showing you that one so that a) interested parties can laugh/marvel at my newly-grey hair and b) so you can see that we are a) so wealthy that we wipe our faces on MONEY or b) that I bought some groovy paper napkins which are printed to look like ï¿½10, ï¿½20 and ï¿½50 notes.

Dear Workies Ladies Darts Team,

Thanks for bounding up to me and asking me if Id like to be in your team. None of you have ever felt it necessary to speak to me in the workies in the nine years that Ive been going in there, but I guess everybody needs to start somewhere.

I hope I explained adequately how flattered I was that youï¿½d asked me but that I really cant play darts. I appreciate that you said skill wasnï¿½t necessarily a prerequisite for team membership but I wouldï¿½ve thought at least some modicum of aptitude might be appropriate. What might not have been appropriate was for you then to let it become common knowledge that you were so eager for me to join your team not because I would be a valuable member and would soon bring my limited skills into line with your own, nor was it because you actually like me and want to be my friends. No. I found out that you wanted me to join your team so that I would ï¿½do the foodï¿½, something I already do for the menï¿½s pool team.

Well ladies, Im sorry that your little plan didnï¿½t work out. I will continue to ï¿½do the foodï¿½ for the menï¿½s pool team, partly because my husband is in that team but also because the other men in that team (YOUR husbands included!) appear to actually be happy to spend time in my company. They all know my name and are pathetically grateful for the snacks I provide them with on pool nights. Some of them have said that itï¿½s the best food they get all week. That might have something to do with the fact that its all home-made, from scratch, using fresh ingredients. This is why I can provide all this:

for ï¿½10, while you struggle to keep the dismay off your faces when you look at the flabby orange ï¿½party eggsï¿½ and curly sandwiches with their cotton wool bread and slimy ham that YOU think is acceptable for human beings to consume. Yep. Your husbands like MY food better than they like yours. Wanna get a closer look at that pizza? Better lick the screen cos thatï¿½s the closest youre getting to me cooking for you, you self-serving moos.

Yum yum.
Love Stepfie (yes, look! I have a name! Tho I wouldnï¿½t expect any of you to know it, not after a mere 9 years)

While weï¿½re cookin up a storm, dear readers, who amongst us doesnï¿½t like a cookie?

Im not talking the Great British Biscuit, here folks! Im talking about the ï¿½American Styleï¿½ bendy chewy wagon wheel sized confections that you can get in a wee bag from Asd@ (Walmart) and which cost approximately ï¿½ a squillion each. Long has been my quest for a recipe for replicating these pliable biscuity behemoths, to no avail. But now, after some experimentation, I think Ive made a pretty good approximation. US readers may, should they so wish, scoff at my foolishness and hoot ï¿½THATï¿½S not how to make cookies!ï¿½, but it is a PARTICULAR type of cookie Im aiming for here, and only my UK readers will know the type. They will not scoff at my foolishness, they will scoff their homemade Asd@ cookies.

1. First, get your ingredients. US readers: golden syrup is similar to ï¿½light corn syrupï¿½, so Im told. You need 4 oz soft margarine/butter/shortening, 4 oz brown sugar, 1 generous tablespoon syrup, 6oz self-raising flour, some ï¿½extrasï¿½ depending on what you want your cookies to taste of (see 4. below)

2. Beat together the margarine/butter and sugar and stir in the syrup

3. Add the flour and give everything a good mix. It should be the consistency of a fairly stiff cake mix

4. Mix in your ï¿½added extrasï¿½, in this case a bag of slightly smashed up Peanut M&Ms, but you can use choc chunks/Crunchie Bar/bits of Toblerone/Smarties/some other kind of sweeties

5. Take out lumps of mixture on a dessert spoon

6. GENTLY roll them up in your palms to form a squishy ball. Donï¿½t bother trying to get it to look neat. It should make around 12/14 decent sized ones. Maybe 10 if you like them REALLY big

7. Space em out on the baking tray as they will spread a bit. Bake at 180C/350F/Gas 4 for 10 mins (chewy) ï¿½ 12 mins (crispy)

8. Et Voila! Cookies a la Asd@ (but at a fraction of the cost!)

Ommy nom nom.

Off now to scratch the remaining skin clean off my face until I reach bone, or it stops itching, whichever be the sooner. Oooh, and if you want to do the cookies, let them cool down a little bit before you try to get them off the baking tray or theyll fall to bits

Later
S
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